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[AMIGA] Dark Obsession - How to get in the restaurant?

Posted: Thu Nov 26, 2009 3:19 pm
by Plissken
Hello guys, i'm stuck in this obscure PD horror text adventure by Micheal Zerbo. Zerbo was an important indipendent adventure game publisher for the Amiga: he published mostly horror titles like Inner Demons, Severed Head, The Child Murderer and so on. IF you don't know his games give them a try, they are pretty good (even if bugged) and with really impressive and eerie soundtracks.

You can find all of Zerbo's games on the IF archive: http://www.ifarchive.org/indexes/if-arc ... amiga.html

However, i am stuck in Dark Obsession.I have taken the bus and have arrived at the restaurant in which my wife and her lover are in. But i can't get in, because of the waiter. I have bribed him with the money, but still no results. How to proceed?

Thanks.

Posted: Fri Nov 27, 2009 2:09 am
by terri
I would like to play this game along with you, but I do not have an Amiga emulator.

Can you help me with this? I did an Internet search, but I appear to have problems and cannot fully download and use the enulator.

Thanks

Terri

Posted: Fri Nov 27, 2009 4:07 am
by terri
I have searched the Internet again and found lots of sites, but none that appear to be reliable enough to download from, yet alone not pay or use for free.

So, if you have saved the beginning of this game into a fomat I can use, please let me know.

Terri

Posted: Fri Nov 27, 2009 9:55 am
by Gunness
Hey, Severed Heads - I remember that one :D Fairly neat game.

Terri,
if you can wait a few hours, I'll have the time to send you some info on how to get up and running.

Plissken, how far into the game are you at this point?

Posted: Fri Nov 27, 2009 10:53 am
by Mr Creosote
I took the liberty of contacting Michael himself about the game (he has got a website at http://www.freewebs.com/nameless/, but there is no contact information on there, so I'm not sure whether it's alright to pass it on). He said he's not sure whether he still has the complete source code (and he doesn't remember the full solution), but he'll have a look what he can dig out.

Posted: Fri Nov 27, 2009 12:40 pm
by Plissken
Thanks for the kind replies, guys! :D
If you have troubles, i can write a walkthrough to reach the point i am stuck into.
terri wrote:I would like to play this game along with you, but I do not have an Amiga emulator.

Can you help me with this? I did an Internet search, but I appear to have problems and cannot fully download and use the enulator.

Thanks

Terri
Have you tried WinUAE? http://www.winuae.net/
Of course, you'll need the kickstart roms, but they aren't so hard to find ;)

Posted: Fri Nov 27, 2009 2:57 pm
by Gunness
Plissken, you're welcome :) I'd like to see a walkthrough of your game so far, as the vocabulary leaves something to be desired, and I don't think I'll have a lot of patience with it.

Posted: Fri Nov 27, 2009 4:57 pm
by Plissken
Here it is. I have just replayed all the game from the beginning and i wrote down the commands i have used:

e
get keys
examine jars
get money
w, s
examine table
open drawer
examine drawer
examine cigars
read card
s
open dresser
examine dresser
search clothes
n, e
get hanger
examine shoes
get key
examine bag
get box
open box
examine box
read paper
w,n,n,n,w
talk to man
search ashtray
examine cigar
get matchbook
e,e,e,e,n,d,d,d,s,s,e,e
talk to prostitutes
give money (after a sequence you will be brought back in your apartment)
n,n,n,e,e,e,n,d,d,d,s,s,w
open car
start car
use car
open trunk
get crowbar
e,e
examine debris
get cans
w,w,w,w,n
talk to clerk
give cans
s,e,e,e,e,s
examine phone
hit phone
wait (a bus will arrive and will bring you to the restaurant)

I have joined the multiple movement commands in order to make the document more readable. If you have any problems, please tell me.
Again, thanks. ;)

Posted: Sun Nov 29, 2009 9:14 pm
by Nameless
Hello,

I am the author of Dark Obsession (Michael Zerbo), and have been searching through my old files for the source code... but no luck. I've found just about everything BUT the source code to the game, including source code to my other Amiga games, and even a printout of code to a C-64 game I wrote as a kid.

I'll try to think of suggestions the player can try to get unstuck, but it's been over 10 years since I played the game, and I wrote it like 15+ years ago, so my memory is a bit foggy as to the exact solution.

I'm glad someone has played my old games though, however buggy they may be. Dark Obsession is unfortunately one of my more 'incomplete' games, as it has several bugs, typos grammar mistakes, etc. -- much more than I'd like. To say the parser is finicky would be an understatement.

If I ever track down the source I can try to recompile a fixed version, but I'm not counting on finding it. I had a bad habit of not properly labeling discs back in my Amiga days.

Posted: Tue Dec 01, 2009 1:42 pm
by Gunness
Hi Michael,
I just wanted to applaud you for taking your time to look into the matter. That's a nice touch :)

Posted: Sun Dec 06, 2009 7:27 pm
by terri
Well, I've not gotten much farther than into the restaurant, like you. Maybe you need better clothes? But where to get them?

There is an alternative route to get to the prostitutes, not that that matters.

There are other locations where one feels one should do something, like where the debris is, or the dump.

Posted: Thu Dec 10, 2009 10:27 am
by Plissken
I think that you have to menace the maitre in some way, but i don't know how.
Using the whip brings a game over screen. "hit man" doesn't give any output. Giving the money and talking to him don't help either. What to do?

Posted: Fri Dec 11, 2009 1:56 am
by terri
I have no idea. I wish I did.

Posted: Fri Dec 11, 2009 7:55 am
by Nameless
This weekend I'll try to dig through some of my old discs again and see if I can find anything. Or just play the game myself, and see if it jogs my memory at all.

I do recall at one time finding the partial code to the game, but it's sort of useless, since I don't know where I put it.

Posted: Mon Jan 25, 2010 10:09 pm
by Plissken
Any luck finding the source or in finding a solution? :(